


Here's my confession (I've got a death wish)

by 13thDoctor



Category: Hamlet (2009), Hamlet - All Media Types, Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, Canon Related, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 15:43:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19429051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13thDoctor/pseuds/13thDoctor
Summary: Horatio found his lord in the throne room.





	Here's my confession (I've got a death wish)

**Author's Note:**

> I re-read Hamlet again, as one does, followed it with my favorite film adaptation, and finally decided to write something. The title comes from the Unlikely Candidates' song "Oh My Dear Lord" since line 38 of the Folger Edition (1992) is Horatio's line, "O, my dear lord--" (3.2) and the comparison between Shakespeare's text and many of the lyrics is difficult to avoid. 
> 
> Shakespeare's lines obviously belong to him. I've also added my own dialogue. Various inspirations should be accredited to this post: https://hot-hot-hotspur.tumblr.com/post/132664795638/little-hamlet-things-i-want
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated. Enjoy!

Horatio found his lord in the throne room. Hamlet lounged on the Queen’s chair, with one leg draped over the King’s crimson cushions and the other leg stretched down to the floor. He was nearly shirtless and completely barefoot, with a look of utter boredom upon his handsome face; his mouth was drawn in a sullen line, as if his maker had conceived him a mirthless creature. His was a mouth designed for jests and wits, and his eyes for holding the bright sparks of mischief in their depths, yet they were closed and his face a smooth mask of marble.

Hamlet stirred at the sound of footsteps. Without looking, he exclaimed, “What ho, Horatio!” Lolling his head to the side, he finally opened his eyes, and stared intently through long lashes at Horatio as he approached.

There had been an unkindness about him the last few days, Horatio knew it all too well. As he walked toward him, however, he saw nothing of the sort, for a gentle melancholy seemed to have concealed the prince’s affected madness that morning.

Despite the expected revelry the players would bring him, Hamlet looked exceeding pale, with bloody veins patterned in his eyes. And that same pain spread, a plague, until Horatio stood before Hamlet with a heavy heart and half a mind to collapse at his feet.

Horatio stood very, very still. “Here, sweet lord, at your service,” he said. His love unguarded itself more with each passing day in Hamlet’s company.

Hamlet smiled with only one side of his mouth. All the time they had spent together and he still often mistook Horatio’s affection for flattery. “Stand you so on ceremony?” he inquired. He plucked absently at the open lapels of his shirt. Both the shirt and suit jacket were unbuttoned fully to expose his jutting ribs and hipbones.

Hamlet’s chest rose and fell with piteous efforts. Eventually, Horatio tore his gaze away to answer, “If it please you.”

Jumping into a crouch on the throne, Hamlet intoned some bastard sound between a laugh and scoff. The quick motion sent him flailing. Horatio’s legs moved him out of habit; the prince was a wild, unbalanced ship bound to wreck, and there was a tacit arrangement that Horatio was to be the anchor.

He caught Hamlet in his arms, Hamlet’s hands wrapped firmly around his waist and Horatio’s clutching Hamlet’s suit jacket tight enough to wrinkle it irreparably. In a dream perhaps he would have stayed, and he counted the missed opportunities in the many breaths he took before he was able to release Hamlet.

When he did, Hamlet did not. One hand lingered, curled, and pulled at Horatio’s collar. Hamlet twisted the material in a white-knuckled fist. Then he moved to his tie, gently at first, before he gave a mighty tug that took Horatio’s breath straight from his lungs.

He braced himself on the throne’s arms. The gilded gold was warm where Hamlet had touched it. There was a thrill running through Horatio like lightning, bright and boiling in his blood. He thought this closeness could scar him as terribly as any storm. Feeling the weight of his heart in his chest and the heat that accompanied such proximity, he considered that it already had left its indelible mark.

Their faces could have been mistaken as a mirror and its reflection, as near they were to each other. Horatio could not, however, have sworn any likeness in their expressions. Where he knew his brows were furrowed and his lips parted, yet every other feature otherwise motionless, he also knew and could see the velocity at which Hamlet’s eyes and mouth moved.

The prince’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. His teeth shone, stark white and sharp, while his eyes pierced just as keenly. His gaze mapped Horatio’s with the same intensity he used to read. Constant of all was his jaw, which clenched around whichever words he had decided deserved caging.

To a stranger he may have appeared certain, what with the way he eventually settled instantly into stillness. To Horatio, that was the indication of utmost uncertainty.

What troubles you?” he whispered. The vice grip on his tie did not loosen. Indeed, with each word of reply, his hold tightened.

“Horatio.” The name was barely spoken aloud, as if it belonged more to Hamlet than to its given body. Hamlet continued, stronger upon the heel of a deep breath, “Thou art as e’en a man as e’er my conversation coped withal.”

Insecurity disguised itself as skepticism in Horatio’s halting reply. With his free hand, Hamlet waved the protests out of the air. Once finished, he settled his palm over Horatio’s heart. In no possible world could he not have felt the mad rush of it, but he made no comment, for which Horatio was grateful.

And then he was speaking, filling all of their silence with all the words in his hand, hardly a pause given in mercy to himself. When he did pause, it was to take both hands and soothe the offenses he’d done to Horatio’s clothing. He looked at the floor, at their feet. ”Dost thou hear?”

Horatio nodded because he did not trust himself to respond aloud. Even if he had, Hamlet was already bounding out of the gates again with fanciful compliments and thus no room for ancillary comments.

All of these flatteries would have been but noise in another’s voice. The prince, of course, spun them with a rare veracity. His monologue’s speed increased desperately even as his entire body stiffened. He was the greyhound poised at the start, though nearing the middle of his praise at that point. “Give me that man that is not passion’s slave,” he said, and laughed giddily, “and I will wear him in my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart, as I do…” Hamlet trailed off into silence. Slowly, and with the smallest maneuvering of his body he could manage, he stood.

Their chests and hips aligned as a sword fits in its scabbard: perfectly, practically, purposefully. Hamlet arched his back to better see Horatio’s face as he finished his sentence. He mouthed the previous words, not to entreat any remembrance, Horatio knew, but to charm them into existence and to empower them over the timid way he concluded, “As I do  _ thee _ .”

The kiss was a submergence into the most peaceful lake, and as natural as sleep. Horatio drifted into it slowly, dazedly, but once he was under, there was little he could imagine craving more. It was as gentle and new as Spring, and Horatio never wanted it to end.

Hamlet tasted of saltwater. Horatio realized belatedly that he was weeping. And Horatio instantly stopped, concern on his tongue, only to have it swallowed back down by his lord.

Denmark vanished. Was there a world outside of that room? Was there existence beyond that moment, or feeling beyond Horatio’s rough hands on Hamlet’s bare skin, the ice and the fire? If there was, Horatio was content never to discover it.

He kissed Hamlet deeper to memorize a mouth he had watched hurl jokes, insults, and adulations. He lost himself in sighs and sounds that surely stole their pitch from the composer of his most generous dreams. The next three kisses were confessions of divine passion, each given with such strength and reverence that the two men lost all ability to breathe.

They could not escape life forever. Hamlet gasped. Breaking away, he stumbled backwards into the throne and winced when his body struck the hard metal. His chest heaved as he gazed at Horatio.

For his part, Horatio was shattered. Accustomed as he was to Hamlet’s rapid emotional and physical turns, he could usually follow quickly and happily. It took a more practiced patience to follow now.

Although his muscles shook, Horatio stepped forward, but Hamlet halted him with a raised hand. The prince closed his eyes, trailed his thumb over his reddened lips, then inspected his hand with a frown. He waited to speak until he had met Horatio’s eyes. “Something too much of this,” he uttered sadly. The words dragged beneath sighs.

It was the grief of an event that had not yet passed, the deafening war-drum beat of a heart in the midst of breaking. Horatio steeled himself against it. Inside he was burning, and outside he allowed only the flicker of a flame, warm enough to smile at Hamlet. Horatio would love Hamlet in every and any manner the prince could manage. For if Hamlet thought he would ruin Horatio with his love, he would do everything in his power to prove how it might instead save them both in this rotten state.


End file.
